Alud Lang Syne

Another year is in the books. 2025 is over. I hear some of you screaming, “Thank Heaven!!” While others are sighing, “Aww, I’ll miss it.” Well, all I can is “Yall are crazy.” And I know crazy. I live with one of the craziest people this world has ever produced. Thing is I can’t get rid of him. He’s me.

Look the old year is gone. Play taps and get over it. It wasn’t completely bad. It wasn’t completely good. There were good and bad parts. Deal with it and have another cup of Aunt Millie’s eggnog. That’ll put hair on your chest. Unless, of course, you’re a girl. In that case it’ll put unwanted hair on your chest.

Advice of the heart

On the other hand, if you’re trying to break up with a cheap boyfriend who gives lousy Christmas gifts, Millie’s brew may be just the thing. Remember, you never want to get stuck with a partner who gives bad presents. Now’s the time to learn about things like this, before it’s too late. If they give horrible stuff now, they’re not going to improve as the years go by. Trust me, get yourself a hairy chest now. You’ll thank me. When you find the right someone, they’ll buy you a set of clippers, and the two of you will walk off into the sunset.

Then again, there could be some guy out there who likes hairy chested women. But that’s a situation I don’t even want to think about. If that’s what you’re into, more power to you. I’ll get you Millie’s recipe, and we’ll move on to better topics.

Annual Ponderings

At this time of the year; there are just so many questions to ponder. Like; Will I get that promotion and make more money? Or perhaps, will I finally find love? Unless you’re married, then you’re on your own. Or, the ever popular, will I correct all my bad habits? I can answer that one. No, you won’t Moving on.

My most ponderable question at this time of the year is; What do I do with all these freaking candy canes? That’s right folks. This year my children conned me into decorating the tree without ornaments or lights. They wanted a bare Christmas tree to create an aesthetic of simplicity. What the heck does that mean? We have a plastic tree. It isn’t simple. In fact, it’s a pain in the butt to assemble. Then you have to straighten all the bent branches, and I get painful prickles under my fingernails. When that happens, I’d like to know the aesthetic my colorful language creates. But I digress.

Either way, I’m told; a bare tree helps to center those who look at it. It has a natural simplicity which reminds us of a less complicated time. It’s a statement against holiday commercialism. Personally, I think it’s a statement of them not wanting to fork out money for ornaments. But that’s beside the point.

The one consolation, the three of them decided on, was candy canes. Somehow these represent childish joy, and purity. This apparently agrees with the vibe of having no lights. Who knew. Anyway, they went out and purchased seven boxes of these peppermint beauties and hung them on the bare tree. I have to admit it looked pretty good throughout the holiday season.

Out with the old

Then came yesterday. We had to take the tree down and put it back in the box. As I previously indicated, our natural simplicity is plastic. Don’t ask me? I just live here. Of course, in this process I had to remove all the candy canes. Tell me; What does one do with about ten-thousand homeless candy canes? Anyone who says, “You eat them silly,” will surely face the wrath of Ohh!

Sure, you can eat one or two, but that’s enough. And they’re not like old bananas, where you can cram them into banana bread or a smoothie. Believe me I tried. Candy cane smoothies are terrible. And candy cane bread is so overwhelmingly sweet it’s inedible. After I made these attempts, I still had nine-thousand-nine-hundred-seventy-six to go.

I called a paving company to see if they could be used in road construction. No deal! They told me no one wanted to smell peppermint roads after the holiday. And besides, they weren’t willing to unwrap them all.

That’s another thing; Can any of you good people truly say, you can unwrap a candy cane? I don’t mean just getting the plastic off. Oh No! You can break the candy and pierce the plastic with the sharp points. I mean truly unwrap it. This means, at the end of your struggle, you have a single piece of plastic in one hand, and a whole uncracked red and white cane in the other. You did this without the aid of a knife, your teeth, the cat’s claws, a blowtorch, or any other implements of destruction. Don’t lie to me. It can’t be done.

What is this stuff?

First of all, the plastic those things are wrapped in is also used in military grade armor. Not body armor mind you, I’m talking about the stuff they put on tanks. Sure, it’s a lot thinner, but you still can’t get through it with conventional weapons. I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I believe The Bikini Atoll disaster was just the military trying to unwrap the candy canes the seventh fleet got in their packages from home. But again, I digress.

Second, they vacuum seal those things. You can’t even exploit an air bubble to break the seal like you might do with a bag of chips. Admit it, you’ve all pressed a bag of chips until a seal breaks. Of course, you also crushed every reasonable chip in the bag. But that’s a fact which doesn’t prove my point so I’ll just ignore it. The point is you can’t do it with candy canes.

I actually thought of packing them in the tree box and using them again next year. If an intelligent man like myself can’t get into those things I’m sure the vermin can’t either. Sadly, my wife intervened, using things like truth and logic to stifle my creative thinking. You’ve got to hate when that happens.

My new yeras resolution

All this brings me to the New Years portion of my post. Everyone is making resolutions, and setting goals this time of the year. So, I thought I’d do the same. Normally I make the same resolution to not be eaten by a tiger, every year. Consequently, this change is a momentous occasion. Because of my success in resolving by never being eaten, I’ve decided to make this change. This year of 2026 I resolve to find a way to open candy canes without harming myself or anyone else.

It’s going to be a tough goal to achieve. But hey, anything worth achieving is worth a bit of work. Look at it this way, I can make over nine-thousand attempts without it costing anything but my sanity. And that’s questionable on my best days. It’s a win-win. Although, if I get eaten by a tiger this year…

I’m blaming all of you!!